


Digna Factis Recipimus

by bbelladonna



Series: Eyes with a Fire [2]
Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: (cause she always blames herself), Season 6 Spoilers, Spoilers, five plays the blame game and she always loses, poor five, spoilers to season 6 ep 11, talks about nightmares and major events from each season
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-10-30 04:54:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10869522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbelladonna/pseuds/bbelladonna
Summary: "We receive the due rewards of our deeds."Five believes she'll soon get hers.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "your smile's a thin disguise"  
> "there's fire in your eyes and blood on your hands"

 The first time she woke up from a nightmare was a week after she ran into Abel. She'd never flown in a helicopter before. She'd never jumped out of a helicopter before. She wasn't afraid of heights, but she was afraid of planes and such. Small spaces and all. When the chopper started going down she almost threw up, and when the pilot yelled at her to jump out she almost fainted where she sat. What had Nathan Drake said? Jump, count to five, and pull the cord. She made it to the ground in one piece, truly a miracle, but in her dreams she has no chute, and she wakes up gasping for air as she watches the ground come hurtling toward her. That first time she spent ten minutes catching her breath and fighting back the sobs building in her throat before falling into a fitful sleep again.

<><>

 Her arm wakes her after she blows up Van Ark's plane. At Van Ark's base after the Major died, Five had woken up to an IV in her left hand and a menacing mad scientist eager to begin experiments. The first two shots stung only like tetanus shots, but the third one felt like what she imagined being on fire felt like. She didn't (couldn't) cry out or stop running, but once Van Ark turned off the treadmill she fell to her knees, belt scraping the skin off them and leaving her legs covered in blood. Her arm, still hooked up to the IV and treadmill, felt like it had been smashed and beaten. The treatments had only scarred her, though, leaving a Lichtenberg-esque figure standing out as a constant reminder. There was no evident damage, but far too often she'd wake up in tears, ready to take a knife and hack off her arm to make the pain stop.

<><>

 Five never remembered everything Moonchild had told her, even in her dreams or nightmares. The most of Moonchild she remembered after she would wake up, either in a panic or not, was her voice quickly fading away. She could clearly remember what she had done, though. She relived destroying the flotilla several times a week, trying each time to stop herself from listening to Moonchild's honey-sweet voice in her ears. She hopes maybe because she was able to disobey a little she can stop herself altogether, but even in a dream she can't stop herself from keying in the code on the console and watching the ships blow up and burn. In her dreams, for some reason she watches them sink and listens to the voices of those who didn't make it onto lifeboats in time.

 Sam's face as she bears down on him. She sees that every night. Even if she didn't, she reminds herself everyday that she didn't try hard enough to break Moonchild's hold on her. She tells herself she's lucky Sam and Abel let her come back after she'd let zombies into Abel. Her one job as a runner, and she couldn't even do that right. On the ride home after Simon and Amelia picked her up at the mental hospital, she'd cried into Simon's shoulder until she passed out, and she had to be almost drug out of the van once they'd made it to Abel. After all this time, she can't forgive herself, and she wakes up from swinging her axe towards Sam wondering how he ever forgave her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "no use saying sorry"  
> "some days I can't even trust myself"

 Lying on the ground on top of the cliffs with the taste of saltwater in her mouth, Five decided she's finally getting what's coming to her.

 When Sam died, for a minute she thought it had been just a fluke, because Sam had left Abel and Sam wasn't allowed to leave Abel. Of course, she blamed herself in the end anyway, claiming she could have saved him somehow. She was young, and didn't have much experience in terms of relationships and partners, but God. She had never loved anyone as much as she loved Sam, and never would again. When they'd found him she felt someone was saying, "Look. If you grow complacent in your place at Abel things you love will be taken away. You have to focus on running and working because that is your job. If you don't do your job you and everyone you love will be punished."

 And of course, with the Minister leaving them on that crumbling cliff to place Abel under her control, it was Five's fault. Abel was her whole life, and she couldn't do anything to protect it. As she lay staring at the sky listening to Maxine give her big motivational speech, Five faintly heard Janine tell her they had to move. She asked for just a quick moment to gather herself, and she closed her eyes as Janine walked off. The sound of the ocean crashing against the cliffs echoed in her ears, and she wished that a moment could last a lifetime.

<><> 

 Victory was never without its prices, Five reminded herself again.

 She had never expected she'd get bitten. Well, she always knew she'd get bit one day. She'd hoped it would have been fighting to protect someone, not stuck in a pen like some lab rat, caught because of a stupid mistake she'd made. The bite had healed into an ugly scar right below her right elbow on her forearm, a constant reminder that she needed to always be on her guard. For anything and anyone.

 Five had also never expected to come back to Abel without Janine. It was because of Janine they ever had Abel, anyway. But she had her secret mission to take care of, and all anyone could do was keep things running as Janine wanted and wait for her to come back. It felt wrong, though. Jody was doing a fine job with what had been left for them, but Abel without Janine felt like someone had cut off one of her arms and told her to keep going.

 (Some days it did feel like her arm had been cut off, but she didn't mention it because there were more important things to worry about. Besides, it was her left arm, the one Van Ark's IV had been plugged into, and she just assumed the feeling was because of those experiments, like the burning she felt. There was no need to bother anyone with something that couldn't be fixed.) 

 All anyone could do was believe in Janine and wait for her to come back, but with how quietly the Minister had taken out most of Netrophil, it would be ages before they heard what had happened to her ~~when~~ if something happened to her. Amelia would periodically reassure them she was fine (as every attempt she made to contact the Ministry ended with _someone_ making sure Amelia was chased off every time). They all worried nonetheless. 

 Five always made an extra lap of the township on her patrol before going to bed, hoping every night to find Janine coming home. Abel felt empty without her.

<><> 

 Not much was known about Moonchild Syndrome. Or at least, Five didn't know much about it. She didn't want to. For so long she'd toted Moonchild around in her head, and learning that others heard her voice too didn't sit right with her. It's not that Five enjoyed Moonchild still hanging around. She knew the Minister was after her, and she was going after others with Moonchild Syndrome to get to her. Others were getting hurt because of her, but what else was new? 

 (God, what an awful name. _Moonchild Syndrome._ It made her flinch every time she heard it.)

 Five really had wanted to tell Janine and Sam about Moonchild as soon as she heard her voice in those tunnels, when she and Steve were chasing Fimm and the wakened warriors, but she never found the right time. What was the right time for something like that? There was just one thing after another, and it wasn't until much later, at Noah base, did Janine, Sam, and Maxine find out.

  When she didn't have anything to do, Five often found herself staring off into space (disassociation, she'd heard a doctor call it when she was little. She got lost in her mind) and thinking too hard about too many things at once. Before she became Runner Five it was just her burning a hole into a wall or tree, not really thinking about anything. Now she thought about Sara and Archie, their voices whispering like Moonchild's used to. She saw the flotilla, Van Ark, and Moonchild. All ghosts that she knew. A lot of times now (since the hypnosis session with Maxine) Moonchild would add her own commentary to things Five saw, which definitely did not help her focus on the real world again. Her "daydreams", she called them when the others asked, looked the same as her nightmares now. Sam had found her in the corner by her cot, where she'd been staring at a very interesting chip in the concrete floor for several hours. He made her tell him what was really going on then, and they went to talk to the others after that. 

 That discussion didn't go exactly as she had originally planned, but she was a little impressed with herself for being able to tell them at all. It was a secret she'd kept to herself because she didn't want people to worry about her, about whether she was okay or potentially a threat, and now that Moonchild Syndrome was showing up in more and more people it was easier to recognize the signs. She hated being the center of attention, but she was used to people being suspicious of her, of not trusting her or wanting her around. She would still do her job, though, because that's what she was at Abel for. 

 For once, though, Five wasn't sure what to do. She didn't have a plan for getting out of this situation. The transmission on the train had really shaken her. She had passed out on the train and woken up with a migraine and Moonchild moaning like she had a bellyache. Five was _scared_. The Minister wanted her because she was the "Alpha", but the last thing she wanted to do was get anywhere near Sigrid when she was just going to be experimented on. She was being selfish for once. 

 The people at the Manor House claimed they could help get Moonchild out of her head, but she didn't think it was going to be so easy. She was the Alpha for a reason. Before this fight of hers was over, people were going to get hurt. People might die. People probably would die.

 But Five would still sell her soul to save them if it came to that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hnnng hi guys sorry that took so long!! I think my definition of "soon" needs some work. Season 4 was actually really hard for me to write and I'm still not happy with it, but right now that's as good as I'm going to get it. I might fix it later. Also endings are hard I might change it later too. This was still unbeta'd and written very late at night. Apologies.  
> But have y'all heard of the Fire Emblem games? I started playing Fire Emblem Awakening the day after I posted the first chapter and right now I'm publishing this a month and four games later. I also went through a bad spot of depression and that plus an new interest kept me from writing for a very long time. Things are really shaken up for me right now (between having to get new job(s) and mitigate a family fight and bleh) but guess what!! The zr blog on tumblr mentioned this fic in the June community roundup and I fell out of my chair. So that motivated me to finish the chapter! It was mostly done anyway I just had some parts to get past and polish it up. And y'all. My martyr complex is thriving in this new season. It's so good for the stuff I want to write.  
> Also, quick note: as I'm publishing this chapter as new episodes are still coming out, I hadn't planned on putting out a new chapter each week. If something interesting happens in a later episode (which it will, because so far every week has given me something new to lose my mind over) I'll probably just update this chapter and add to the end of it. I also might change some things in Chapter 1, too. Keep an eye open for that!  
> tldr; Video games, depression. I got it done finally.  
> Thank you for the kind messages, and thank you for reading! I have other things drafted up but whether they get published or not remains to be seen. Catch y'all later.


End file.
